Derek and I watched...I think two more episodes of Severence last night.
I do want to make it known that like...I think two things can be happening at once here. There can be a mystery with twists and turns that are meant to shock and feel like a puzzle, and there can be themes, philosophical meaning, and social commentary. I realized that I didn't quite hit on that yesterday because I wanted to get my theories out tthere for tracking and adjusting, but there's a lot of really good shit going on with Severence there (and some solidly mega bleak humor. That Pip's VIP scene was a fucking riot, but so fucking dark). The sharp critique of corporate culture and perhaps jobs in general? Solid. The questions of agency and self-determination? Wonderful. THE ELDER QUEERNESS OF IT ALL???? Thank you for including old queers, Severence, I love it. Derek and I could not stop giggling over Ricken's book excerpts being read aloud, with the mostly schlocky bullshit being interspersed with fuckin' bangers (I definitely have been railing about "your job needs you, not the other way around" for years. I was also really fond of "in the midle of industry is dust" or however he worded it. Derek and I laughed at that out loud, but I don't think that line was entirely meant to ridicule Ricken, I thought it was more of the commentary stuff I've heard about in stories).
With Derek saying I should just watch the show and enjoy it as it happens like he does (he didn't use thoses exact words. I'm paraphrasing), and my dad telling me he wouldn't spoil anything for me but I should really just enjoy the show, I feel like there's this assumption that because I am busy trying to "solve" the show's mysteries that I am somehow missing out on enjoying the show fully...but it's a weird thing to tell someone how to best enjoy anything. I can do both, and I DO do both. Part of the joy for me is piecing all of it together, and I don't think the mystery at the heart of Severence is...no pun intended...separated from the critiques and commentary. Derek asked me if I like being right about when I call stuff in shows, and I was like OF COURSE! And that is true, there's a small bit of something in there that tickles the part of me that never got to be the author I wanted to be when I was younger...like, "look, I can think like a writer that tells really engaging, intricate stories, I COULD have been a writer". This is how I go about piecing things together. I think about how I'd write it with the information I'm presented with in a show. I get a kick out of being right, not for some sort of like, intellectual superiority flex (because how does that translate? "I SOLVED WESTWORLD BEFORE THE REVEALS! I WILL TAKE ALL OF THE SOCIAL AND MONETARY PRIZES NOW, THANK YOU!" It isn't a flex...to me, anyway), but because I like feeling like I understand how to tell a great story.
I am still enjoying Severence as it comes, I'm jut multi-tasking the ways I enjoy it.
Moving on to how I feel the last few episodes (we watched 4, 5, and 6 last night) and how they stack up to my theories.
What the fuck were these episodes. What the fuck were these episodes!!!! I'm gagged over them, they throw a wrench into so much shit.
To my first theory about memory tampering and cloning/duplication: I have maintained since...I think the first episode...that what is being done in MDR is erasing of something in that worker's head. So Mark S. is erasing bad shit from Mark's upper brain, which is why he can feel the emotion behind each number that needs to be binned. But soomething I thought about this morning when getting ready to write this is like...the workers are SUPER replaceable. And yeah, I get it, that is capitalism culture 101, you are indistinguishable from the next drone...ok, moving orward, I am going o try noo to be like, and h underling symbolism here is THIS statement about this pressing philosophical question! unless I REALLY need tto use that to explain a certain theory I have...But anyway, Petey was replaced with Helly with like, no effort. Computers weren't changed, Mark just moved stations and Helly took over Mark's old station. Computers weren't altered...even though I guess that could have been done off-screen while the outies were outie-ing...so can the mysterious and important work be tailored to a specific MDR worker if they can just play musical chairs and change stations without needing to change computers? I still think they are doing some sort of thought pruning, just not in their OWN heads. It could be mindless busy work, I suppose, but I think it's getting rid of emotions.
And the thing about the goats makes me feel like there is definitely something to do with cloning or duplication. When Derek and I were talking about the goats last night, I asked him if maybe that was like...a nod to Dolly, and an indication that yes, in fact, there is cloning afoot. I just asked Derek to clarify his thoughts on my thoughts about the goats as a nod to cloning. He said, "I don't think it makes sense, but if you like it, you like it". So I guess I'm alone in that.
It strikes me as weird that we haven't seen what Gemma looks like. I was more than happy to ignore that, as the focus of the show is not Gemma, it's Mark, but my dad mentioned her by name when trying to vaguely discuss season 2. I couldn't stop thinking about it, because as far ahead of us as my dad is in the series, there has been VERY little talk of Gemma by this point in season 1, so I think...I think she's either a character in the series we've seen already, or she is going to be introduced any fucking minute to us. I think it's the former, and when I floated this to Derek, he said, "so Gemma is Ms. Casey?" and I went, "...ooooh, I buy that". I told Derek that every time they've been cagey about showing whatever alias Ms.Selvig is assuming, they hide showing her while still engaging with whatever character she's taking on (Ms. Selvig and the lactation consultant), because they want to reveal her to us as a surprise. It isn't very surprising, but I don't think that's sloppy writing (these writers are meticulous, I think, and this tory is fuckin' TIGHTLY told), I think it's a red herring for the real big reveal. Which I think is gonna be Gemma. I wrote this out of order, and I mention how I got to the Gemma conclusion in a paragraph or two. But like, Mark Outie is very obviously a guy who is deeply grieving his dead wife, going so far as to hug the tree we're meant to assume killed her...why are there no photos of her around? I think it's to reveal her later at a really big moment. I like Derek's idea that Gemma is Ms. Casey. It shows that we also can't trust Ms. Selvig's loyalty to LuluLemons, I think. Because I cannot for the fucking life of me figure the fuck out why M. Cobel would take that candle and then have it in Ms. Casey's wellnes cener EXCEPT I JUST HAD AN AHA MOMENT ABOUT IT. Hang on, going to write it in the bit I'm writing about Ms. Cobel.
The senator's wife is severed, right? We noticed she was wearing a blue ribbon on her robe when she talked to Devon, and then when she saw Devon at the park she was carrying Blotus nee William (I can't remember what she named the baby in outieland, so Blotus will have to suffice) in a blue Baby Bjorn. Derek and I agree that she is severed, but I think something nefarious is afoot with that. Derek does not. I thought it was weird that there was no alignment on the baby'' name...why would Mrs. Senator not tell her innie what they were naming the baby? Derek has really great reasons for why there is this discrepancy...namely "why would she have to tell her innie? That's her only job", and I do think this is a great expansion on the conversation surrounding autonomy and personhood that the subtext is rich with (though Helly saying that her innie isn't a person? That isn' subtext, it's just text), ESPECIALLY given the social discourse surrounding people who can give birth in America and our agency to choose how we handle pregnancy and birth...but I am still not sold on this jut being a rich person's convenience, I think it's a major hint that something like this is going on writ large. I looked at Derek all wide eyed and said, "IS THAT WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE PERPETUITY WING????" Like maybe there are just scorres of pregnant innies with no ability to say no to being pregnant all the fucking time. It's hard for me to determine what this show mens by perpetuity...do they mean the financial definition of perpetuuity, playing into capitalism and corporate criticisms? OR do they mean the "into forever" perpetuity? Both could work. Both could really work. I have more thoughts coming to me right now, I hope I can remember them. I just told Derek to remind me to talk to him about the perpetuity wing. I have to get the rest of this written. Derek looked at me a few minutes ago and said, "you're still writing?" and I said, "I'm into this show. Leave me alone."
Ok, so what is Ms. Selvig nee Cobel's deal, really? There is no way that the chip she's wearing around her neck is Petey's, so whose is it? Derek and I discussed that it could be hers, which is why Doug said to her that she was right about reintegration. But she doesn't seem to be severed (Doug asking her if she was a nurse was amazing), so she wouldn't have a chip to reintegrate with. I'm not sure that the chip is hers. I just know it isn't Petey's. I think we're meant to assume that this is a modern procedure, whatever is being done at LuLuLemons, but what if it isn't? Ms. Cobel nee Selvig (I think this last episode actually solves the poblem of which came first, I think she's just a Cobel) sat down at her shrine to pray the weird Kier prayers and we got a nice little glimpse of future past exposition dumping. The hospital bracelet with the date of who we assume is her mother's birth being 1944, and seeing the photo of who we should also...contextually...assume is her mother at the Eagan home for girlypops...makes me wonder if Ms. Cobel's mother was severed, and the chip she is wearing is her mother's? And she's on the hunt to reinegrate her mother? I couldn't quite figure out how that would work last night, since it seems pretty clear that you can only get someone's chip if they're dead. But given everything I just wrote in the above paragraph about Gemma, I think this furthers my theory about clones/duplicates. If Derek and I are right, and Gemma is Ms. Casey, Gemma is supposed to be dead. Is Gemma actually dead? Am I right about cloning/duplicates? We don't know. Derek and I were just discussing that nobody in this show is a reliable narrator...they can't be by the very design of LuLuLemons' procedure. But it isn't like LuLuLemons couldn't have grabbed Gemma's body after the car accident and then just SAID she was dead, but severed her. I don't know why they'd do that, what is significant about Gemma? Or Mark, for that matter? My best guess is that, if this theory is right and Derek is right that Gemma never died and her body was just taken after the accident, Gemma was just a convenient body to take, and she could have been anybody. But then how would Mark have gotten involved? How did Mark get sold onto being severed at LuLuLemons? I think that Ms. Cobel is not at all loyal to LuLuLemons, she's loyal to reintegration (did I say that already? I might have), and is there to serve her own ends. Which is why she has given the MDR crew the ability to wander around and not do work, and why she put the candle in Ms. Casey's session with Mark, and why she is suddenly angry that MDR isn't reaching quotas. There has been so much fuckery going on, like...there's no way Ms. Selvig didn't know about Petey making his map, I think she was allowing it all to happen so someone could be the guinea pig and she could keep her hands clean while keeping the board pacified. She knows. She has to. But I can't determine if Milchik knows. Petey had to get the tape from the break room somehow, and Milchik is in charge of the Break Room. They've shown us the rigor and sensitivity of the system that detects data smuggling, and I have to believe that is to make us wonder how the outside stuff got smuggled. But in the lastt episode, we saw Milchhik talking to someone else who was controlling Dylan's sever switch...which, honestly, makes me laugh at the techy simplicity of the chip itself? It sounds so sci fi advanced, but is someone really just like, yanking a lever to turn on the innies as they go down the elevator? Is that why the front desk lady has to ask if they're reay for everyone as they arrive, and why they have to stagger everyone leaving? I thought it was to make sure nobody saw anybody else that they work with so the outside lives didn't bleed in, but maybe it isn't. Anyway, who was Milchik working with to do that? I asked Derek if Milchik and Ms. Cobel are two heads of the same snake, or two snakes. Dererk thinks two snakes. I'm kinda inclined to think he's right, and they're both eving thei own ends.
I cannot determine why Milchik would have allowed Dylan to swipe a card from O&D an then pull him out of his off work time to ask him where it was. Why not call it out at work? I haven't figured out Milchik yet, and I don't even have any interesting theories for that. Yet.
We have two episodes of eason 1 left, and I's so anxious to see what the fucking deal is, and to get into season 2. I fucking love this show.
I think this is everything for now.
Edit:
Derek corrected my theory about the pregnancy innies in the perpetuity wing. He told me that the perpetuity wing is the field trip that Irving was so excited to take Helly on. Well. Fine, then.
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